Yesterday Paramount Pictures released six new photos from JJ Abrams‘ Star Trek (if you havent seen them yet, click here). Entertainment Weekly premiered their extensive cover story earlier. We have three more new photos (one from Yahoo, one from AICN, and one from /film reader Franco L). We’ve also decided to break down the EW article into bite-sized easily digestible facts, just in case you didn’t want to read all eight pages.

$150 million budget confirmed

Chris Pine was one of three candidates to test with Quinto for Kirk

JJ Abrams gave Randy Pausch, the now-late author of The Last Lecture and avowed Trekker, a cameo in the film

Phasers are described as “sleek silver gizmos with spring-triggered barrels that revolve and glow in the transition from ‘stun’ to ‘kill’.”

Abrams describes the Bridge: ”To me, the bridge is so cool, it makes the Apple Store look uncool.”

The Bridge set is “filled with nods to the one from the show”.

The U.S.S. Kelvin was named after JJ Abrams’ maternal grandfather Henry Kelvin. He owned an electronics company and was very influential to Abrams as a boy (you may remember him from Abrams’ famous mystery box story. Abrams includes his name in all of his projects.

The writers say that Spock is getting “an action upgrade” in the film.

Abrams says: ”It was important to me that optimism be cool again.”

One of the “redibility-enhancing details” added to the Enterprise are handrails that the crew can now grab during turbulence to keep from falling.

Abrams again insists that Star Trek is not “a movie for fans of Star Trek,” but “a movie for fans of movies.”

Leonard Nimoy appears in “scenes with at least one of the actors on [the Entertainment Weekly] cover — and maybe both.” They call Nimoy’s first scene in the film “goose-bumpingly cool.”

The film’s Plot: The USS Kelvin is attacked by a vicious Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) who is desperately looking for one of the film’s heroes (Romulan attack on USS Kelvin takes place ‘before Kirk was born’). The film follows the origins of Kirk and Spock’s friendship and shows how the entire Enterprise crew came together.

We will see “the awe-inspiring introduction of the Enterprise” and “thrilling action sequences on a harsh ice planet and in the skies of Vulcan”.

Chris Pine still a “fresh-faced space cadet” when he first confronts the Romulans.

First full trailer confirmed to be attached to Quantum of Solace on November 14th.